The Ghostly Rental

Henry James

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The Ghostly Rental

I was in my twenty-second year, and I had just left college. I was at liberty to choose my career,
and I chose it with much promptness. I afterward renounced it, in truth, with equal ardor, but I have never regretted
those two youthful years of perplexed and excited, but also of agreeable and fruitful experiment. I had a taste for
theology, and during my college term I had been an admiring reader of Dr. Channing. This was theology of a grateful and
succulent savor; it seemed to offer one the rose of faith delightfully stripped of its thorns. And then (for I rather
think this had something to do with it), I had taken a fancy to the old Divinity School. I have always had an eye to
the back scene in the human drama, and it seemed to me that I might play my part with a fair chance of applause (from
myself at least), in that detached and tranquil home of mild casuistry, with its respectable avenue on one side, and
its prospect of green fields and contact with acres of woodland on the other. Cambridge, for the lovers of woods and
fields, has changed for the worse since those days, and the precinct in question has forfeited much of its mingled
pastoral and scholastic quietude. It was then a College-hall in the woods — a charming mixture.

What it is now has nothing to do with my story; and I have no doubt that there are still doctrine-haunted young
seniors who, as they stroll near it in the summer dusk, promise themselves, later, to taste of its fine leisurely
quality. For myself, I was not disappointed. I established myself in a great square, low-browed room, with deep
window-benches; I hung prints from Overbeck and Ary Scheffer on the walls; I arranged my books, with great refinement
of classification, in the alcoves beside the high chimney-shelf, and I began to read Plotinus and St. Augustine. Among
my companions were two or three men of ability and of good fellowship, with whom I occasionally brewed a fireside bowl;
and with adventurous reading, deep discourse, potations conscientiously shallow, and long country walks, my initiation
into the clerical mystery progressed agreeably enough.

With one of my comrades I formed an especial friendship, and we passed a great deal of time together. Unfortunately
he had a chronic weakness of one of his knees, which compelled him to lead a very sedentary life, and as I was a
methodical pedestrian, this made some difference in our habits. I used often to stretch away for my daily ramble, with
no companion but the stick in my hand or the book in my pocket. But in the use of my legs and the sense of unstinted
open air, I have always found company enough. I should, perhaps, add that in the enjoyment of a very sharp pair of
eyes, I found something of a social pleasure. My eyes and I were on excellent terms; they were indefatigable observers
of all wayside incidents, and so long as they were amused I was contented. It is, indeed, owing to their inquisitive
habits that I came into possession of this remarkable story. Much of the country about the old College town is pretty
now, but it was prettier thirty years ago. That multitudinous eruption of domiciliary pasteboard which now graces the
landscape, in the direction of the low, blue Waltham Hills, had not yet taken place; there were no genteel cottages to
put the shabby meadows and scrubby orchards to shame — a juxtaposition by which, in later years, neither element of the
contrast has gained. Certain crooked cross-roads, then, as I remember them, were more deeply and naturally rural, and
the solitary dwellings on the long grassy slopes beside them, under the tall, customary elm that curved its foliage in
mid-air like the outward dropping ears of a girdled wheat-sheaf, sat with their shingled hoods well pulled down on
their ears, and no prescience whatever of the fashion of French roofs — weather-wrinkled old peasant women, as you
might call them, quietly wearing the native coif, and never dreaming of mounting bonnets, and indecently exposing their
venerable brows.

That winter was what is called an “open” one; there was much cold, but little snow; the roads were firm and free,
and I was rarely compelled by the weather to forego my exercise. One gray December afternoon I had sought it in the
direction of the adjacent town of Medford, and I was retracing my steps at an even pace, and watching the pale, cold
tints — the transparent amber and faded rose-color — which curtained, in wintry fashion, the western sky, and reminded
me of a sceptical smile on the lips of a beautiful woman. I came, as dusk was falling, to a narrow road which I had
never traversed and which I imagined offered me a short cut homeward. I was about three miles away; I was late, and
would have been thankful to make them two. I diverged, walked some ten minutes, and then perceived that the road had a
very unfrequented air. The wheel-ruts looked old; the stillness seemed peculiarly sensible. And yet down the road stood
a house, so that it must in some degree have been a thoroughfare. On one side was a high, natural embankment, on the
top of which was perched an apple-orchard, whose tangled boughs made a stretch of coarse black lace-work, hung across
the coldly rosy west. In a short time I came to the house, and I immediately found myself interested in it. I stopped
in front of it gazing hard, I hardly knew why, but with a vague mixture of curiosity and timidity. It was a house like
most of the houses thereabouts, except that it was decidedly a handsome specimen of its class. It stood on a grassy
slope, it had its tall, impartially drooping elm beside it, and its old black well-cover at its shoulder. But it was of
very large proportions, and it h — a striking look of solidity and stoutness of timber. It had lived to a good old age,
too, for the wood-work on its door-way and under its eaves, carefully and abundantly carved, referred it to the middle,
at the latest, of the last century.

All this had once been painted white, but the broad back of time, leaning against the door-posts for a hundred
years, had laid bare the grain of the wood. Behind the house stretched an orchard of apple-trees, more gnarled and
fantastic than usual, and wearing, in the deepening dusk, a blighted and exhausted aspect. All the windows of the house
had rusty shutters, without slats, and these were closely drawn. There was no sign of life about it; it looked blank,
bare and vacant, and yet, as I lingered near it, it seemed to have a familiar meaning — an audible eloquence. I have
always thought of the impression made upon me at first sight, by that gray colonial dwelling, as a proof that induction
may sometimes be near akin to divination; for after all, there was nothing on the face of the matter to warrant the
very serious induction that I made.

I fell back and crossed the road. The last red light of the sunset disengaged itself, as it was about to vanish, and
rested faintly for a moment on the time-silvered front of the old house. It touched, with perfect regularity, the
series of small panes in the fan-shaped window above the door, and twinkled there fantastically. Then it died away, and
left the place more intensely somber. At this moment, I said to myself with the accent of profound conviction — “The
house is simply haunted!”

Somehow, immediately, I believed it, and so long as I was not shut up inside, the idea gave me pleasure. It was
implied in the aspect of the house, and it explained it. Half an hour before, if I had been asked, I would have said,
as befitted a young man who was explicitly cultivating cheerful views of the supernatural, that there were no such
things as haunted houses. But the dwelling before me gave a vivid meaning to the empty words: it had been spiritually
blighted.

The longer I looked at it, the intenser seemed the secret that it held. I walked all round it, I tried to peep here
and there, through a crevice in the shutters, and I took a puerile satisfaction in laying my hand on the door-knob and
gently turning it. If the door had yielded, would I have gone in? — would I have penetrated the dusty stillness? My
audacity, fortunately, was not put to the test. The portal was admirably solid, and I was unable even to shake it. At
last I turned away, casting many looks behind me. I pursued my way, and, after a longer walk than I had bargained for,
reached the high-road. At a certain distance below the point at which the long lane I have mentioned entered it, stood
a comfortable, tidy dwelling, which might have offered itself as the model of the house which is in no sense haunted —
which has no sinister secrets, and knows nothing but blooming prosperity. Its clean white paint stared placidly through
the dusk, and its vine-covered porch had been dressed in straw for the winter. An old, one-horse chaise, freighted with
two departing visitors, was leaving the door, and through the undraped windows, I saw the lamp-lit sitting-room, and
the table spread with the early “tea,” which had been improvised for the comfort of the guests. The mistress of the
house had come to the gate with her friends; she lingered there after the chaise had wheeled creakingly away, half to
watch them down the road, and half to give me, as I passed in the twilight, a questioning look. She was a comely, quick
young woman, with a sharp, dark eye, and I ventured to stop and speak to her.

“That house down that side-road,” I said, “about a mile from here — the only one — can you tell me whom it belongs
to?”

She stared at me a moment, and, I thought, colored a little. “Our folks never go down that road,” she said,
briefly.

“But it’s a short way to Medford,” I answered.

She gave a little toss of her head. “Perhaps it would turn out a long way. At any rate, we don’t use it.”

This was interesting. A thrifty Yankee household must have good reasons for this scorn of time-saving processes.
“But you know the house, at least?” I said.

“Well, I have seen it.”

“And to whom does it belong?”

She gave a little laugh and looked away, as if she were aware that, to a stranger, her words might seem to savor of
agricultural superstition. “I guess it belongs to them that are in it.”

“But is there any one in it? It is completely closed.”

“That makes no difference. They never come out, and no one ever goes in.” And she turned away.

But I laid my hand on her arm, respectfully. “You mean,” I said, “that the house is haunted?”

She drew herself away, colored, raised her finger to her lips, and hurried into the house, where, in a moment, the
curtains were dropped over the windows.

For several days, I thought repeatedly of this little adventure, but I took some satisfaction in keeping it to
myself. If the house was not haunted, it was useless to expose my imaginative whims, and if it was, it was agreeable to
drain the cup of horror without assistance. I determined, of course, to pass that way again; and a week later — it was
the last day of the year — I retraced my steps. I approached the house from the opposite direction, and found myself
before it at about the same hour as before. The light was failing, the sky low and gray; the wind wailed along the
hard, bare ground, and made slow eddies of the frost-blackened leaves. The melancholy mansion stood there, seeming to
gather the winter twilight around it, and mask itself in it, inscrutably. I hardly knew on what errand I had come, but
I had a vague feeling that if this time the door-knob were to turn and the door to open, I should take my heart in my
hands, and let them close behind me. Who were the mysterious tenants to whom the good woman at the corner had alluded?
What had been seen or heard — what was related? The door was as stubborn as before, and my impertinent fumblings with
the latch caused no upper window to be thrown open, nor any strange, pale face to be thrust out. I ventured even to
raise the rusty knocker and give it half-a-.dozen raps, but they made a flat, dead sound, and aroused no echo.
Familiarity breeds contempt; I don’t know what I should have done next, if, in the distance, up the road (the same one
I had followed), I had not seen a solitary figure advancing. I was unwilling to be observed hanging about this
ill-famed dwelling, and I sought refuge among the dense shadows of a grove of pines near by, where I might peep forth,
and yet remain invisible. Presently, the new-coiner drew near, and I perceived that he was making straight for the
house. He was a little, old man, the most striking feature of whose appearance was a voluminous cloak, of a sort of
military cut. He carried a walking-stick, and advanced in a slow, painful, somewhat hobbling fashion, but with an air
of extreme resolution. He turned off from the road, and followed the vague wheel-track, and within a few yards of the
house he paused. He looked up at it, fixedly and searchingly, as if he were counting the windows, or noting certain
familiar marks. Then he took off his hat, and bent over slowly and solemnly, as if he were performing an obeisance. As
he stood uncovered, I had a good look at him. He was, as I have said, a diminutive old man, but it would have been hard
to decide whether he belonged to this world or to the other. His head reminded me, vaguely, of the portraits of Andrew
Jackson. He had a crop of grizzled hair, as still as a brush, a lean, pale, smooth-shaven face, and an eye of intense
brilliancy, surmounted with thick brows, which had remained perfectly black. His face, as well as his cloak, seemed to
belong to an old soldier; he looked like a retired military man of a modest rank; but he struck me as exceeding the
classic privilege of even such a personage to be eccentric and grotesque. When he had finished his salute, he advanced
to the door, fumbled in the folds of his cloak, which hung down much further in front than behind, and produced a key.
This he slowly and carefully inserted into the lock, and then, apparently, he turned it. But the door did not
immediately open; first he bent his head, turned his ear, and stood listening, and then he looked up and down the road.
Satisfied or re-assured, he applied his aged shoulder to one of the deep-set panels, and pressed a moment. The door
yielded — opening into perfect darkness. He stopped again on the threshold, and again removed his hat and made his bow.
Then he went in, and carefully closed the door behind him.

Who in the world was he, and what was his errand? He might have been a figure out of one of Hoffmann’s tales. Was he
vision or a reality — an inmate of the house, or a familiar, friendly visitor? What had been the meaning, in either
case, of his mystic genuflexions, and how did he propose to proceed, in that inner darkness? I emerged from my
retirement, and observed narrowly, several of the windows. In each of them, at an interval, a ray of light became
visible in the chink between the two leaves of the shutters. Evidently, he was lighting up; was he going to give a
party — a ghostly revel? My curiosity grew intense, but I was quite at a loss how to satisfy it. For a moment I thought
of rapping peremptorily at the door; but I dismissed this idea as unmannerly, and calculated to break the spell, if
spell there was. I walked round the house and tried, without violence, to open one of the lower windows. It resisted,
but I had better fortune, in a moment, with another. There was a risk, certainly, in the trick I was playing — a risk
of being seen from within, or (worse) seeing, myself, something that I should repent of seeing. But curiosity, as I
say, had become an inspiration, and the risk was highly agreeable. Through the parting of the shutters I looked into a
lighted room — a room lighted by two candles in old brass flambeaux, placed upon the mantel-shelf. It was apparently a
sort of back parlor, and it had retained all its furniture. This was of a homely, old-fashioned pattern, and consisted
of hair-cloth chairs and sofas, spare mahogany tables, and framed samplers hung upon the walls. But although the room
was furnished, it had a strangely uninhabited look; the tables and chairs were in rigid positions, and no small,
familiar objects were visible. I could not see everything, and I could only guess at the existence, on my right, of a
large folding-door. It was apparently open, and the light of the neighboring room passed through it. I waited for some
time, but the room remained empty.

At last I became conscious that a large shadow was projected upon the wall opposite the folding-door — the shadow,
evidently, of a figure in the adjoining room. It was tall and grotesque, and seemed to represent a person sitting
perfectly motionless, in profile. I thought I recognized the perpendicular bristles and far-arching nose of my little
old man. There was a strange fixedness in his posture; he appeared to be seated, and looking intently at something. I
watched the shadow a long time, but it never stirred. At last, however, just as my patience began to ebb, it moved
slowly, rose to the ceiling, and became indistinct. I don’t know what I should have seen next, but by an irresistible
impulse, I closed the shutter. Was it delicacy? — was it pusillanimity? I can hardly say. I lingered, nevertheless,
near the house, hoping that my friend would re-appear. I was not disappointed; for he at last emerged, looking just as
when he had gone in, and taking his leave in the same ceremonious fashion. (The lights, I had already observed, had
disappeared from the crevice of each of the windows.) He faced about before the door, took off his hat, and made an
obsequious bow. As he turned away I had a hundred minds to speak to him, but I let him depart in peace. This, I may
say, was pure delicacy; — you will answer, perhaps, that it came too late. It seemed to me that he had a right to
resent my observation; though my own right to exercise it (if ghosts were in the question) struck me as equally
positive. I continued to watch him as he hobbled softly down the bank, and along the lonely road. Then I musingly
retreated in the opposite direction. I was tempted to follow him, at a distance, to see what became of him; but this,
too, seemed indelicate; and I confess, moreover, that I felt the inclination to coquet a little, as it were, with my
discovery — to pull apart the petals of the flower one by one.

I continued to smell the flower, from time to time, for its oddity of perfume had fascinated me.

I passed by the house on the crossroad again, but never encountered the old man in the cloak or any other way-farer.
It seemed to keep observers at a distance, and I was careful not to gossip about it: one inquirer, I said to myself,
may edge his way into the secret, but there is no room for two. At the same time, of course, I would have been thankful
for any chance sidelight that might fall across the matter — though I could not well see whence it was to come. I hoped
to meet the old man in the cloak elsewhere, but as the days passed by without his re-appearing, I ceased o expect it.
And yet I reflected that he probably lived n that neighorhood, inasmuch as he had made his pilgrimage to the vacant
house on foot. If he had come from a distance, he would have been sure to arrive in some old deep-hooded gig with
yellow wheels — a vehicle as venerably grotesque as himself. One day I took a stroll in Mount Auburn cemetery — an
institution at that period in its infancy, and full of a sylvan charm which it has now completely forfeited. It
contained more maple and birch than willow and cypress, and the sleepers had ample elbow room. It was not a city of the
dead, but at the most a village, and a meditative pedestrian might stroll there without too importunate reminder of the
grotesque side of our claims to posthumous consideration. I had come out to enjoy the first foretaste of Spring — one
of those mild days of late winter, when the torpid earth seems to draw the first long breath that marks the rupture of
the spell of sleep. The sun was veiled in haze, aid yet warm, and the frost was oozing from its deepest lurking-place.
I had been treading for half an hour the winding ways of the cemetery, when suddenly I perceived a familiar figure
seated on a bench against a southward-facing evergreen hedge. I call the figure familiar, because I had seen it often
in memory and in fancy; in fact, I had beheld it but once. Its back was turned to me, but it wore a voluminous cloak,
which there was no mistaking. Here, at last, was my fellow-visitor at the haunted house, and here was my chance, if I
wished to approach him! I made a circuit, and came toward him from in front. He saw me, at the end of the alley, and
sat motionless, with his hands on the head of his stick, watching me from under his black eyebrows as I drew near. At a
distance these black eyebrows looked formidable; they were the only thing I saw in his face. But on a closer view I was
re-assured, simply because I immediately felt that no man could really be as fantastically fierce as this poor old
gentleman looked. His face was a kind of caricature of martial truculence. I stopped in front of him, and respectfully
asked leave to sit and rest upon his bench. He granted it with a silent gesture, of much dignity, and I placed myself
beside him. In this position I was able, covertly, to observe him. He was quite as much an oddity in the morning
sunshine, as he had been in the dubious twilight. The lines in his face were as rigid as if they had been hacked out of
a block by a clumsy wood-carver. His eyes were flamboyant, his nose terrific, his mouth implacable. And yet, after
awhile, when he slowly turned and looked at me, fixedly, I perceived that in spite of this portentous mask, he was a
very mild old man. I was sure he even would have been glad to smile, but, evidently, his facial muscles were too stiff
— they had taken a different fold, once for all. I wondered whether he was demented, but I dismissed the idea; the
fixed glitter in his eye was not that of insanity. What his face really expressed was deep and simple sadness; his
heart perhaps was broken, but his brain was intact. His dress was shabby but neat, and his old blue cloak had known
half a century’s brushing.

I hastened to make some observation upon the exceptional softness of the day, and he answered me in a gentle, mellow
voice, which it was almost startling to hear proceed from such bellicose lips.

“This is a very comfortable place,” he presently added.

“I am fond of walking in graveyards,” I rejoined deliberately; flattering myself that I had struck a vein that might
lead to something.

I was encouraged; he turned and fixed me with his duskily glowing eyes. Then very gravely, — “Walking, yes. Take all
your exercise now. Some day you will have to settle down in a graveyard in a fixed position.”

“Very true,” said I. “But you know there are some people who are said to take exercise even after that day.”

He had been looking at me still; at this he looked away.

“You don’t understand?” I said, gently.

He continued to gaze straight before him.

“Some people, you know, walk about after death,” I went on.

At last he turned, and looked at me more portentously than ever. “You don’t believe that,” he said simply.

“How do you know I don’t?”

“Because you are young and foolish.” This was said without acerbity — even kindly; but in the tone of an old man
whose consciousness of his own heavy experience made everything else seem light.

“I am certainly young,” I answered; “but I don’t think that, on the whole, I am foolish. But say I don’t believe in
ghosts — most people would be on my side.”

“Most people are fools!” said the old man.

I let the question rest, and talked of other things. My companion seemed on his guard, he eyed me defiantly, and
made brief answers to my remarks; but I nevertheless gathered an impression that our meeting was an agreeable thing to
him, and even a social incident of some importance.

He was evidently a lonely creature, and his opportunities for gossip were rare. He had had troubles, and they had
detached him from the world, and driven him back upon himself; but the social chord in his antiquated soul was not
entirely broken, and I was sure he was gratified to find that it could still feebly resound. At last, he began to ask
questions himself; he inquired whether I was a student.

“I am a student of divinity,” I answered.

“Of divinity?”

“Of theology. I am studying for the ministry.”

At this he eyed me with peculiar intensity after which his gaze wandered away again. “There are certain things you
ought to know, then,” he said at last.

“I have a great desire for knowledge,” I answered. “What things do you mean?”

He looked at me again awhile, but without heeding my question.

“I like your appearance,” he said. “You seem to me a sober lad.”

“Oh, I am perfectly sober!” I exclaimed yet departing for a moment from my soberness.

“I think you are fair-minded,” he went on.

“I don’t any longer strike you as foolish, then?” I asked.

“I stick to what I said about people who deny the power of departed spirits to return. They are fools!” And he
rapped fiercely with his staff on the earth.

I hesitated a moment, and then, abruptly, “You have seen a ghost!” I said.

He appeared not at all startled.

“You are right, sir!” he answered with great dignity. “With me it’s not a matter of cold theory — I have not had to
pry into old books to learn what to believe. I know! With these eyes I have beheld the departed spirit standing before
me as near as you are!” And his eyes, as he spoke, certainly looked as if they had rested upon strange things.

I was irresistibly impressed — I was touched with credulity.

“And was it very terrible?” I asked.

“I am an old soldier — I am not afraid!”

“When was it? — where was it?” I asked.

He looked at me mistrustfully, and I saw that I was going too fast.

“Excuse me from going into particulars,” he said. “I am not at liberty to speak more fully. I have told you so much,
because I cannot bear to hear this subject spoken of lightly. Remember in future, that you have seen a very honest old
man who told you — on his honor — that he had seen a ghost!” And he got up, as if he thought he had said enough.
Reserve, shyness, pride, the fear of being laughed at, the memory, possibly, of former strokes of sarcasm — all this,
on one side, had its weight with him; but I suspected that on the other, his tongue was loosened by the — garrulity of
old age, the sense of solitude, and the need of sympathy — and perhaps, also, by the friend-liness which he had been so
good as to express toward myself. Evidently it would be unwise to press him, but I hoped to see him again.

“The same to you, sir!” And brandishing his stick portentously — though with the friendliest intentions — he marched
stiffly away.

I asked two or three persons — selected with discretion — whether they knew anything about Captain Diamond, but they
were quite unable to enlighten me. At last, suddenly, I smote my forehead, and, dubbing myself a dolt, remembered that
I was neglecting a source of information to which I had never applied in vain. The excellent person at whose table I
habitually dined, and who dispensed hospitality to students at so much a week, had a sister as good as herself, and of
conversational powers more varied. This sister, who was known as Miss Deborah, was an old maid in all the force of the
term. She was deformed, and she never went out of the house; she sat all day at the window, between a bird-cage and a
flower-pot, stitching small linen articles — mysterious bands and frills. She wielded, I was assured, an exquisite
needle, and her work was highly prized. In spite of her deformity and her confinement, she had a little, fresh, round
face, and an imperturbable serenity of spirit. She had also a very quick little wit of her own, she was extremely
observant, and she had a high relish for a friendly chat. Nothing pleased her so much as to have you — especially, I
think, if you were a young divinity student — move your chair near her sunny window, and settle yourself for twenty
minutes’ “talk.” “Well, sir,” she used always to say “what is the latest monstrosity in Biblical criticism?” — for she
used to pretend to be horrified at the rationalistic tendency of the age. But she was an inexorable little philosopher,
and I am convinced that she was a keener rationalist than any of us, and that, if she had chosen, she could have
propounded questions that would have made the boldest of us wince. Her window commanded the whole town — or rather, the
whole country. Knowledge came to her as she sat singing, with her little, cracked voice, in her low rocking-chair. She
was the first to learn everything, and the last to forget it. She had the town gossip at her fingers’ ends, and she
knew everything about people she had never seen. When I asked her how she had acquired her learning, she said simply —
“Oh, I observe!” “Observe closely enough,” she once said, “and it doesn’t matter where you are. You may be in a
pitch-dark closet. All you want is something to start with; one thing leads to another, and all things are mixed up.
Shut me up in a dark closet and I will observe after a while, that some places in it are darker than others. After that
(give me time), and I will tell you what the President of the United States is going to have for dinner.”

Once I paid her a compliment. “Your observation,” I said, “is as fine as your needle, and your statements are as
true as your stitches.”

Of course Miss Deborah had heard of Captain Diamond. He had been much talked about many years before, but he had
survived the scandal that attached to his name.

“What was the scandal?” I asked.

“He killed his daughter.”

“Killed her?” I cried; “how so?”

“Oh, not with a pistol, or a dagger, or a dose of arsenic! With his tongue. Talk of women’s tongues! He cursed her —
with some horrible oath — and she died!”

“What had she done?”

“She had received a visit from a young man who loved her, and whom he had forbidden the house.”

“The house,” I said — “ah yes! The house is out in the country, two or three miles from here, on a lonely
cross-road.”

Miss Deborah looked sharply at me, as she bit her thread.

“Ah, you know about the house?” she said.

“A little,” I answered; “I have seen it. But I want you to tell me more.”

But here Miss Deborah betrayed an incommunicativeness which was most unusual.

“You wouldn’t call me superstitious, would you?” she asked.

“You? — you are the quintessence of pure reason.”

“Well, every thread has its rotten place, and every needle its grain of rust. I would rather not talk about that
house.”

“You have no idea how you excite my curiosity!” I said.

“I can feel for you. But it would make me very nervous.”

“What harm can come to you?” I asked.

“Some harm came to a friend of mine.” And Miss Deborah gave a very positive nod.

“What had your friend done?”

“She had told me Captain Diamond’s secret, which he had told her with a mighty mystery. She had been an old flame of
his, and he took her into his confidence. He bade her tell no one, and assured her that if she did, something dreadful
would happen to her.”

“And what happened to her?”

“She died.”

“Oh, we are all mortal!” I said. “Had she given him a promise?”

“She had not taken it seriously, she had not believed him. She repeated the story to me, and three days afterward,
she was taken with inflammation of the lungs. A month afterward, here where I sit now, I was stitching her
grave-clothes. Since then, I have never mentioned what she told me.”

“Was it very strange?”

“It was strange, but it was ridiculous too. It is a thing to make you shudder and to make you laugh, both. But you
can’t worry it out of me. I am sure that if I were to tell you, I should immediately break a needle in my finger, and
die the next week of lock-jaw.”

I retired, and urged Miss Deborah no further; but every two or three days, after dinner, I came and sat down by her
rocking chair. I made no further allusion to Captain Diamond; I sat silent, clipping tape with her scissors. At last,
one day, she told me I was looking poorly. I was pale.

“I am dying of curiosity,” I said. “I have lost my appetite. I have eaten no dinner.”

“Remember Bluebeard’s wife!” said Miss Deborah.

“One may as well perish by the sword as by famine!” I answered.

Still she said nothing, and at last I rose with a melo-dramatic sigh and departed. As I reached the door she called
me and pointed to the chair I had vacated. “I never was hard-hearted,” she said. “Sit down, and if we are to perish,
may we at least perish together.” And then, in very few words, she communicated what she knew of Captain Diamond’s
secret. “He was a very high-tempered old man, and though he was very fond of his daughter, his will was law. He had
picked out a husband for her, and given her due notice. Her mother was dead, and they lived alone together. The house
had been Mrs. Diamond’s own marriage portion; the Captain, I believe, hadn’t a penny. After his marriage they had come
to live there, and he had begun to work the farm. The poor girl’s lover was a young man with whiskers from Boston. The
Captain came in one evening and found them together; he collared the young man, and hurled a terrible curse at the poor
girl. The young man cried that she was his wife, and he asked her if it was true. She said, No! Thereupon Captain
Diamond, his fury growing fiercer, repeated his imprecation, ordered her out of the house, and disowned her forever.
She swooned away, but her father went raging off and left her. Several hours later, he came back and found the house
empty. On the table was a note from the young man telling him that he had killed his daughter, repeating the assurance
that she was his own wife, and declaring that he himself claimed the sole right to commit her remains to earth. He had
carried the body away in a gig! Captain Diamond wrote him a dreadful note in answer, saying that he didn’t believe his
daughter was dead, but that, whether or no, she was dead to him. A week later, in the middle of the night, he saw her
ghost. Then, I suppose, he was convinced. The ghost re-appeared several times, and finally began regularly to haunt the
house. It made the old man very uncomfortable, for little by little his passion had passed away, and he was given up to
grief. He determined at last to leave the place, and tried to sell it or rent it; but meanwhile the story had gone
abroad, the ghost had been seen by other persons the house had a bad name, and it was impossible to dispose of it. With
the farm, it was the old man’s only property, and his only means of subsistence; if he could neither live in it nor
rent it he was beggared. But the ghost had no mercy, as he had had none. He struggled for six months, and at last he
broke down. He put on his old blue cloak and took up his staff, and prepared to wander sway and beg his bread. Then the
ghost relented, and proposed a compromise. ‘Leave the house to me!’ it said; ‘I have marked it for my own. Go off and
live elsewhere. But to enable you to live, I will be your tenant, since you can find no other. I will hire the house of
you and pay you a certain rent.’ And the ghost named a sum. The old man consented, and he goes every quarter to collect
his rent!”

I laughed at this recital, but I confess I shuddered too, for my own observation had exactly confirmed it. Had I not
been witness of one of the Captain’s quarterly visits, had I not all but seen him sit watching his spectral tenant
count out the rent-money, and when he trudged away in the dark, had he not a little bag of strangely gotten coin hidden
in the folds of his old blue cloak? I imparted none of these reflections to Miss Deborah, for I was determined that my
observations should have a sequel, and I promised myself the pleasure of treating her to my story in its full maturity.
“Captain Diamond,” I asked, “has no other known means of subsistence?”

“None whatever. He toils not, neither does he spin — his ghost supports him. A haunted house is valuable
property!”

“And in what coin does the ghost pay?”

“In good American gold and silver. It has only this peculiarity — that the pieces are all dated before the young
girl’s death. It’s a strange mixture of matter and spirit!”

“And does the ghost do things handsomely; is the rent large?”

“The old man, I believe, lives decently, and has his pipe and his glass. He took a little house down by the river;
the door is sidewise to the street, and there is a little garden before it. There he spends his days, and has an old
colored woman to do for him. Some years ago, he used to wander about a good deal, he was a familiar figure in the town,
and most people knew his legend. But of late he has drawn back into his shell; he sits over his fire, and curiosity has
forgotten him. I suppose he is falling into his dotage. But I am sure, I trust,” said Miss Deborah in conclusion, “that
he won’t outlive his faculties or his powers of locomotion, for, if I remember rightly, it was part of the bargain that
he should come in person to collect his rent.”

We neither of us seemed likely to suffer any especial penalty for Miss Deborah’s indiscretion; I found her, day
after day, singing over her work, neither more nor less active than usual. For myself, I boldly pursued my
observations. I went again, more than once, to the great graveyard, but I was disappointed in my hope of finding
Captain Diamond there. I had a prospect, however, which afforded me compensation. I shrewdly inferred that the old
man’s quarterly pilgrimages were made upon the last day of the old quarter. My first sight of him had been on the 31 st
of December, and it was probable that he would return to his haunted home on the last day of March. This was near at
hand; at last it arrived. I betook myself late in the afternoon to the old house on the cross-road, supposing that the
hour of twilight was the appointed season. I was not wrong. I had been hovering about for a short time, feeling very
much like a restless ghost myself, when he appeared in the same manner as before, and wearing the same costume. I again
concealed myself, and saw him enter the house with the ceremonial which he had used on the former occasion. A light
appeared successively in the crevice of each pair of shutters, and I opened the window which had yielded to my
importunity before. Again I saw the great shadow on the wall, motionless and solemn. But I saw nothing else. The old
man re-appeared at last, made his fantastic salaam before the house, and crept away into the dusk.

One day, more than a month after this, I met him again at Mount Auburn. The air was full of the voice of Spring; the
birds had come back and were twittering over their Winter’s travels, and a mild west wind was making a thin murmur in
the raw verdure. He was seated on a bench in the sun, still muffled in his enormous mantle, and he recognized me as
soon as I approached him. He nodded at me as if he were an old Bashaw giving the signal for my decapitation, but it was
apparent that he was pleased to see me.

“I have looked for you here more than once,” I said. “You don’t come often.”

“What did you want of me?” he asked.

“I wanted to enjoy your conversation. I did so greatly when I met you here before.”

“You found me amusing?”

“Interesting!” I said.

“You didn’t think me cracked?”

“Cracked? My dear sir —!” I protested.

“I’m the sanest man in the country. I know that is what insane people always say; but generally they can’t prove it.
I can!”

“I believe it,” I said. “But I am curious to know how such a thing can be proved.”

He was silent awhile.

“I will tell you. I once committed, unintentionally, a great crime. Now I pay the penalty. I give up my life to it.
I don’t shirk it; I face it squarely, knowing perfectly what it is. I haven’t tried to bluff it off; I haven’t begged
off from it; I haven’t run away from it. The penalty is terrible, but I have accepted it. I have been a
philosopher!

“If I were a Catholic, I might have turned monk, and spent the rest of my life in fasting and praying. That is no
penalty; that is an evasion. I might have blown my brains out — I might have gone mad. I wouldn’t do either. I would
simply face the music, take the consequences. As I say, they are awful! I take them on certain days, four times a year.
So it has been these twenty years; so it will be as long as I last. It’s my business; it’s my avocation. That’s the way
I feel about it. I call that reasonable!”

“Admirably so!” I said. “But you fill me with curiosity and with compassion.”

“Especially with curiosity,” he said, cunningly.

“Why,” I answered, “if I know exactly what you suffer I can pity you more.”

“I’m much obliged. I don’t want your pity; it won’t help me. I’ll tell you something, but it’s not for myself; it’s
for your own sake.” He paused a long time and looked all round him, as if for chance eaves-droppers. I anxiously
awaited his revelation, but he disappointed me. “Are you still studying theology?” he asked.

“Oh, yes,” I answered, perhaps with a shade of irritation. “It’s a thing one can’t learn in six months.”

“I should think not, so long as you have nothing but your books. Do you know the proverb, ‘A grain of experience is
worth a pound of precept?’ I’m a great theologian.”

“Ah, you have had experience,” I murmured sympathetically.

“You have read about the immortality of the soul; you have seen Jonathan Edwards and Dr. Hopkins chopping logic over
it, and deciding, by chapter and verse, that it is true. But I have seen it with these eyes; I have touched it with
these hands!” And the old man held up his rugged old fists and shook them portentously. “That’s better!” he went on;
“but I have bought it dearly.”

“You had better take it from the books — evidently you always will. You are a very good young man; you will never
have a crime on your conscience.” I answered with some juvenile fatuity, that I certainly hoped I had my share of human
passions, good young man and prospective Doctor of Divinity as I was.

“Ah, but you have a nice, quiet little temper,” he said. “So have I— now! But once I was very brutal — very brutal.
You ought to know that such things are. I killed my own child.”

“Your own child?”

“I struck her down to the earth and left her to die. They could not hang me, for it was not with my hand I struck
her. It was with foul and damnable words. That makes a difference; it’s a grand law we live under! Well, sir, I can
answer for it that her soul is immortal. We have an appointment to meet four times a year, and then I catch it!”

“She has never forgiven you?”

“She has forgiven me as the angels forgive! That’s what I can’t stand — the soft, quiet way she looks at me. I’d
rather she twisted a knife about in my heart — O Lord, Lord, Lord!” and Captain Diamond bowed his head over his stick,
and leaned his forehead on his crossed hands.

I was impressed and moved, and his attitude seemed for the moment a check to further questions. Before I ventured to
ask him anything more, he slowly rose and pulled his old cloak around him. He was unused to talking about his troubles,
and his memories overwhelmed him. “I must go my way,” he said; “I must be creeping along.”

“I shall perhaps meet you here again,” I said.

“Oh, I’m a stiff-jointed old fellow,” he answered, “and this is rather far for me to come. I have to reserve myself.
I have sat sometimes a month at a time smoking my pipe in my chair. But I should like to see you again.” And he stopped
and looked at me, terribly and kindly. “Some day, perhaps, I shall be glad to be able to lay my hand on a young,
unperverted soul. If a man can make a friend, it is always something gained. What is your name?”

I had in my pocket a small volume of Pascal’s “Thoughts,” on the fly-leaf of which were written my name and address.
I took it out and offered it to my old friend. “Pray keep this little book,” I said. “It is one I am very fond of, and
it will tell you something about me.”

He took it and turned it over slowly, then looking up at me with a scowl of gratitude, “I’m not much of a reader,”
he said; “but I won’t refuse the first present I shall have received since — my troubles; and the last. Thank you,
sir!” And with the little book in his hand he took his departure.

I was left to imagine him for some weeks after that sitting solitary in his arm-chair with his pipe. I had not
another glimpse of him. But I was awaiting my chance, and on the last day of June, another quarter having elapsed, I
deemed that it had come. The evening dusk in June falls late, and I was impatient for its coming. At last, toward the
end of a lovely summer’s day, I revisited Captain Diamond’s property. Everything now was green around it save the
blighted or-chard in its rear, but its own immitigable grayness and sadness were as striking as when I had first beheld
it beneath a December sky. As I drew near it, I saw that I was late for my purpose, for my purpose had simply been to
step forward on Captain Diamond’s arrival, and bravely ask him to let me go in with him. He had preceded me, and there
were lights already in the windows.

I was unwilling, of course, to disturb him during his ghostly interview, and I waited till he came forth. The lights
disappeared in the course of time, then the door opened and Captain Diamond stole out. That evening he made no bow to
the haunted house, for the first object he beheld was his fair-minded young friend planted, modestly but firmly, near
the door-step. He stopped short, looking at me, and this time his terrible scowl was in keeping with the situation.

“I knew you were here,” I said. “I came on purpose.”

He seemed dismayed, and looked round at the house uneasily.

“I beg your pardon if I have ventured too far,” I added, “but you know you have encouraged me.”

“How did you know I was here?”

“I reasoned it out. You told me half your story, and I guessed the other half. I am a great observer, and I had
noticed this house in passing. It seemed to me to have a mystery. When you kindly confided to me that you saw spirits,
I was sure that it could only be here that you saw them.”

“You are mighty clever,” cried the old man. “And what brought you here this evening?”

I was obliged to evade this question.

“Oh, I often come; I like to look at the house — it fascinates me.”

He turned and looked up at it himself. “It’s nothing to look at outside.” He was evidently quite unaware of its
peculiar outward appearance, and this odd fact, communicated to me thus in the twilight, and under the very brow of the
sinister dwelling, seemed to make his vision of the strange things within more real.

“I have been hoping,” I said, “for a chance to see the inside. I thought I might find you here, and that you would
let me go in with you. I should like to see what you see.” He seemed confounded by my boldness, but not altogether
displeased. He laid his hand on my arm. “Do you know what I see?” he asked.

“How can I know, except as you said the other day, by experience? I want to have the experience. Pray, open the door
and take me in.”

Captain Diamond’s brilliant eyes expanded beneath their dusky brows, and after holding his breath a moment, he
indulged in the first and last apology for a laugh by which I was to see his solemn visage contorted. It was profoundly
grotesque, but it was perfectly noiseless. “Take you in?” he softly growled. “I wouldn’t go in again before my time’s
up for a thousand times that sum.” And he thrust out his hand from the folds of his cloak and exhibited a small
agglommeration of coin, knotted into the corner of an old silk pocket-handkerchief. “I stick to my bargain no less, but
no more!”

“But you told me the first time I had the pleasure of talking with you that it was not so terrible.”

“I don’t say it’s terrible — now. But it’s damned disagreeable!”

This adjective was uttered with a force that made me hesitate and reflect. While I did so, I thought I heard a
slight movement of one of the window-shutters above us. I looked up, but everything seemed motionless. Captain Diamond,
too, had been thinking; suddenly he turned toward the house. “If you will go in alone,” he said, “you are welcome.”

“Will you wait for me here?”

“Yes, you will not stop long.”

“But the house is pitch dark. When you go you have lights.”

He thrust his hand into the depths of his cloak and produced some matches. “Take take,” he said. “You will find two
candlesticks with candles on the table in the hall. Light them, take one in each hand and go ahead.”

“Where shall I go?”

“Anywhere — everywhere. You can trust the ghost to find you.” I will not pretend to deny that by this time my heart
was beating. And yet I imagine I motioned the old man with a sufficiently dignified gesture to open the door. I had
made up my mind that there was in fact a ghost. I had conceded the premise. Only I had assured myself that once the
mind was prepared, and the thing was not a surprise, it was possible to keep cool. Captain Diamond turned the lock,
flung open the door, and bowed low to me as I passed in. I stood in the darkness, and heard the door close behind me.
For some moments, I stirred neither finger nor toe; I stared bravely into the impenetrable dusk. But I saw nothing and
heard nothing, and at last I struck a match. On the table were two old brass candlesticks rusty from disuse. I lighted
the candles and began my tour of exploration.

A wide staircase rose in front of me, guarded by an antique balustrade of that rigidly delicate carving which is
found so often in old New England houses. I postponed ascending it, and turned into the room on my right. This was an
old-fashioned parlor, meagerly furnished, and musty with the absence of human life. I raised my two lights aloft and
saw nothing but its empty chairs and its blank walls. Behind it was the room into which I had peeped from without, and
which, in fact, communicated with it, as I had supposed, by folding doors. Here, too, I found myself confronted by no
menacing specter. I crossed the hall again, and visited the rooms on the other side; a dining-room in front, where I
might have written my name with my finger in the deep dust of the great square table; a kitchen behind with its pots
and pans eternally cold. All this was hard and grim, but it was not formidable. I came back into the hall, and walked
to the foot of the staircase, holding up my candles; to ascend required a fresh effort, and I was scanning the gloom
above.

Suddenly, with an inexpressible sensation, I became aware that this gloom was animated; it seemed to move and gather
itself together. Slowly — I say slowly, for to my tense expectancy the instants appeared ages — it took the shape of a
large, definite figure, and this figure advanced and stood at the top of the stairs. I frankly confess that by this
time I was conscious of a feeling to which I am in duty bound to apply the vulgar name of fear. I may poetize it and
call it Dread, with a capital letter; it was at any rate the feeling that makes a man yield ground. I measured it as it
grew, and it seemed perfectly irresistible; for it did not appear to come from within but from without, and to be
embodied in the dark image at the head of the staircase. After a fashion I reasoned — I remember reasoning. I said to
myself, “I had always thought ghosts were white and transparent; this is a thing of thick shadows, densely opaque.” I
reminded myself that the occasion was momentous, and that if fear were to overcome me I should gather all possible
impressions while my wits remained. I stepped back, foot behind foot, with my eyes still on the figure and placed my
candles on the table. I was perfectly conscious that the proper thing was to ascend the stairs resolutely, face to face
with the image, but the soles of my shoes seemed sud-denly to have been transformed into leaden weights. I had got what
I wanted; I was seeing the ghost. I tried to look at the figure distinctly so that I could remember it, and fairly
claim, afterward, not to have lost my self-possession. I even asked myself how long it was expected I should stand
looking, and how soon I could honorably retire. All this, of course, passed through my mind with extreme rapidity, and
it was checked by a further movement on the part of the figure. Two white hands appeared in the dark perpendicular
mass, and were slowly raised to what seemed to be the level of the head. Here they were pressed together, over the
region of the face, and then they were removed, and the face was disclosed. It was dim, white, strange, in every way
ghostly. It looked down at me for an instant, after which one of the hands was raised again, slowly, and waved to and
fro before it. There was something very singular in this gesture; it seemed to denote resentment and dismissal, and yet
it had a sort of trivial, familiar motion.

Familiarity on the part of the haunting Presence had not entered into my calculations, and did not strike me
pleasantly. I agreed with Captain Diamond that it was “damned disagreeable.” I was pervaded by an intense desire to
make an orderly, and, if possible, a graceful retreat. I wished to do it gallantly, and it seemed to me that it would
be gallant to blow out my candles. I turned and did so, punctiliously, and then I made my way to the door, groped a
moment and opened it. The outer light, almost extinct as it was, entered for a moment, played over the dusty depths of
the house and showed me the solid shadow.

Standing on the grass, bent over his stick, under the early glimmering stars, I found Captain Diamond. He looked up
at me fixedly for a moment, but asked no questions, and then he went and locked the door. This duty performed, he
discharged the other — made his obeisance like the priest before the altar — and then without heeding me further, took
his departure.

A few days later, I suspended my studies and went off for the summer’s vacation. I was absent for several weeks,
during which I had plenty of leisure to analyze my impressions of the supernatural. I took some satisfaction in the
reflection that I had not been ignobly terrified; I had not bolted nor swooned — I had proceeded with dignity.
Nevertheless, I was certainly more comfortable when I had put thirty miles between me and the scene of my exploit, and
I continued for many days to prefer the daylight to the dark. My nerves had been powerfully excited; of this I was
particularly conscious when, under the influence of the drowsy air of the sea-side, my excitement began slowly to ebb.
As it disappeared, I attempted to take a sternly rational view of my experience. Certainly I had seen something — that
was not fancy; but what had I seen? I regretted extremely now that I had not been bolder, that I had not gone nearer
and inspected the apparition more minutely. But it was very well to talk; I had done as much as any man in the
circumstances would have dared; it was indeed a physical impossibility that I should have advanced. Was not this
paralyzation of my powers in itself a supernatural influence? Not necessarily, perhaps, for a sham ghost that one
accepted might do as much execution as a real ghost. But why had I so easily accepted the sable phantom that waved its
hand? Why had it so impressed itself? Unquestionably, true or false, it was a very clever phantom. I greatly preferred
that it should have been true — in the first place because I did not care to have shivered and shaken for nothing, and
in the second place because to have seen a well-authenticated goblin is, as things go, a feather in a quiet man’s cap.
I tried, therefore, to let my vision rest and to stop turning it over. But an impulse stronger than my will recurred at
intervals and set a mocking question on my lips. Granted that the apparition was Captain Diamond’s daughter; if it was
she it certainly was her spirit. But was it not her spirit and something more? The middle of September saw me again
established among the theologic shades, but I made no haste to revisit the haunted house.

The last of the month approached — the term of another quarter with poor Captain Diamond — and found me indisposed
to disturb his pilgrimage on this occasion; though I confess that I thought with a good deal of compassion of the
feeble old man trudging away, lonely, in the autumn dusk, on his extraordinary errand. On the thirtieth of September,
at noonday, I was drowsing over a heavy octavo, when I heard a feeble rap at my door. I replied with an invitation to
enter, but as this produced no effect I repaired to the door and opened it. Before me stood an elderly negress with her
head bound in a scarlet turban, and a white handkerchief folded across her bosom. She looked at me intently and in
silence; she had that air of supreme gravity and decency which aged persons of her race so often wear. I stood
interrogative, and at last, drawing her hand from her ample pocket, she held up a little book. It was the copy of
Pascal’s “Thoughts” that I had given to Captain Diamond.

“Please, sir,” she said, very mildly, “do you know this book?”

“Perfectly,” said I, “my name is on the fly-leaf.”

“It is your name — no other?”

“I will write my name if you like, and you can compare them,” I answered.

She was silent a moment and then, with dignity — “It would be useless, sir,” she said, “I can’t read. If you will
give me your word that is enough. I come,” she went on, “from the gentleman to whom you gave the book. He told me to
carry it as a token — a token — that is what he called it. He is right down sick, and he wants to see you.”

“Captain Diamond — sick?” I cried. “Is his illness serious?”

“He is very bad — he is all gone.”

I expressed my regret and sympathy, and offered to go to him immediately, if his sable messenger would show me the
way. She assented deferentially, and in a few moments I was following her along the sunny streets, feeling very much
like a personage in the Arabian Nights, led to a postern gate by an Ethiopian slave. My own conductress directed her
steps toward the river and stopped at a decent little yellow house in one of the streets that descend to it. She
quickly opened the door and led me in, and I very soon found myself in the presence of my old friend. He was in bed, in
a darkened room, and evidently in a very feeble state. He lay back on his pillow staring before him, with his bristling
hair more erect than ever, and his intensely dark and bright old eyes touched with the glitter of fever. His apartment
was humble and scrupulously neat, and I could see that my dusky guide was a faithful servant. Captain Diamond, lying
there rigid and pale on his white sheets, resembled some ruggedly carven figure on the lid of a Gothic tomb. He looked
at me silently, and my companion withdrew and left us alone.

“Yes, it’s you,” he said, at last, “it’s you, that good young man. There is no mistake, is there?”

“I hope not; I believe I’m a good young man. But I am very sorry you are ill. What can I do for you?”

I questioned him about the nature of his malady and the length of time he had been in bed, but he barely heeded me;
he seemed impatient to speak of something else. He grasped my sleeve, pulled me toward him, and whispered quickly:

“You know my time’s up!”

“Oh, I trust not,” I said, mistaking his meaning. “I shall certainly see you on your legs again.”

“God knows!” he cried. “But I don’t mean I’m dying; not yet a bit. What I mean is, I’m due at the house. This is
rent-day.”

“Oh, exactly! But you can’t go.”

“I can’t go. It’s awful. I shall lose my money. If I am dying, I want it all the same. I want to pay the doctor. I
want to be buried like a respectable man.”

“It is this evening?” I asked.

“This evening at sunset, sharp.”

He lay staring at me, and, as I looked at him in return, I suddenly understood his motive in sending for me.
Morally, as it came into my thought, I winced. But, I suppose I looked unperturbed, for he continued in the same tone.
“I can’t lose my money. Some one else must go. I asked Belinda; but she won’t hear of it.”

“You believe the money will be paid to another person?”

“We can try, at least. I have never failed before and I don’t know. But, if you say I’m as sick as a dog, that my
old bones ache, that I’m dying, perhaps she’ll trust you. She don’t want me to starve!”

“You would like me to go in your place, then?”

“You have been there once; you know what it is. Are you afraid?”

I hesitated.

“Give me three minutes to reflect,” I said, “and I will tell you.” My glance wandered over the room and rested on
the various objects that spoke of the threadbare, decent poverty of its occupant. There seemed to be a mute appeal to
my pity and my resolution in their cracked and faded sparseness. Meanwhile Captain Diamond continued, feebly:

“I think she’d trust you, as I have trusted you; she’ll like your face; she’ll see there is no harm in you. It’s a
hundred and thirty-three dollars, exactly. Be sure you put them into a safe place.”

“Yes,” I said at last, “I will go, and, so far as it depends upon me, you shall have the money by nine o’clock
to-night.”

He seemed greatly relieved; he took my hand and faintly pressed it, and soon afterward I withdrew. I tried for the
rest of the day not to think of my evening’s work, but, of course, I thought of nothing else. I will not deny that I
was nervous; I was, in fact, greatly excited, and I spent my time in alternately hoping that the mystery should prove
less deep than it appeared, and yet fearing that it might prove too shallow. The hours passed very slowly, but, as the
afternoon began to wane, I started on my mission. On the way, I stopped at Captain Diamond’s modest dwelling, to ask
how he was doing, and to receive such last instructions as he might desire to lay upon me. The old negress, gravely and
inscrutably placid, admitted me, and, in answer to my inquiries, said that the Captain was very low; he had sunk since
the morning.

“You must be right smart,” she said, “if you want to get back before he drops off.”

A glance assured me that she knew of my projected expedition, though, in her own opaque black pupil, there was not a
gleam of self-betrayal.

“But why should Captain Diamond drop off’?” I asked. “He certainly seems very weak; but I cannot make out that he
has any definite disease.”

“His disease is old age,” she said, sententiously.

“But he is not so old as that; sixty-seven or sixty-eight, at most.”

She was silent a moment.

“He’s worn out; he’s used up; he can’t stand it any longer.”

“Can I see him a moment?” I asked; upon which she led me again to his room.

He was lying in the same way as when I had left him, except that his eyes were closed. But he seemed very “low,” as
she had said, and he had very little pulse. Nevertheless, I further learned the doctor had been there in the afternoon
and professed himself satisfied. “He don’t know what’s been going on,” said Belinda, curtly.

The old man stirred a little, opened his eyes, and after some time recognized me.

“I’m going, you know,” I said. “I’m going for your money. Have you anything more to say?”

He raised himself slowly, and with a painful effort, against his pillows; but he seemed hardly to understand me.
“The house, you know,” I said. “Your daughter.”

He rubbed his forehead, slowly, awhile, and at last, his comprehension awoke. “Ah, yes,” he murmured, “I trust you.
A hundred and thirty-three dollars. In old pieces — all in old pieces.”

Then he added more vigorously, and with a brightening eye: “Be very respectful — be very polite. If not — if not — ”
and his voice failed again.

“Oh, I certainly shall be,” I said, with a rather forced smile. “But, if not?”

“If not, I shall know it!” he said, very gravely. And with this, his eyes closed and he sunk down again.

I took my departure and pursued my journey with a sufficiently resolute step. When I reached the house, I made a
propitiatory bow in front of it, in emulation of Captain Diamond. I had timed my walk so as to be able to enter without
delay; night had already fallen. I turned the key, opened the door and shut it behind me. Then I struck alight, and
found the two candlesticks I had used before, standing on the tables in the entry. I applied a match to both of them,
took them up and went into the parlor. It was empty, and though I waited awhile, it remained empty. I passed then into
the other rooms on the same floor, and no dark image rose before me to check my steps. At last, I came out into the
halt again, and stood weighing the question of going upstairs.

The staircase had been the scene of my discomfiture before, and I approached it with profound mistrust. At the foot,
I paused, looking up, with my hand on the balustrade. I was acutely expectant, and my expectation was justified.
Slowly, in the darkness above, the black figure that I had seen before took shape. It was not an illusion; it was a
figure, and the same. I gave it time to define itself, and watched it stand and look down at me with its hidden face.
Then, deliberately, I lifted up my voice and spoke.

“I have come in place of Captain Diamond, at his request,” I said. “He is very ill; he is unable to leave his bed.
He earnestly begs that you will pay the money to me; I will immediately carry it to him.” The figure stood motionless,
giving no sign. “Captain Diamond would have come if he were able to move,” I added, in a moment, appealingly; “but, he
is utterly unable.”

At this the figure slowly unveiled its face and showed me a dim, white mask; then it began slowly to descend the
stairs. Instinctively I fell back before it, retreating to the door of the front sitting-room. With my eyes still fixed
on it, I moved backward across the threshold; then I stopped in the middle of the room and set down my lights. The
figure advanced; it seemed to be that of a tall woman, dressed in vaporous black crape. As it drew near, I saw that it
had a perfectly human face, though it looked extremely pale and sad. We stood gazing at each other; my agitation had
completely vanished; I was only deeply interested.

“Is my father dangerously ill?” said the apparition.

At the sound of its voice — gentle, tremulous, and perfectly human — I started forward; I felt a rebound of
excitement. I drew a long breath, I gave a sort of cry, for what I saw before me was not a disembodied spirit, but a
beautiful woman, an audacious actress. Instinctively, irresistibly, by the force of reaction against my credulity, I
stretched out my hand and seized the long veil that muffled her head. I gave it a violent jerk, dragged it nearly off,
and stood staring at a large fair person, of about five-and-thirty. I comprehended her at a glance; her long black
dress, her pale, sorrow-worn face, painted to look paler, her very fine eyes, — the color of her father’s, — and her
sense of outrage at my movement.

“My father, I suppose,” she cried, “did not send you here to insult me!” and she turned away rapidly, took up one of
the candles and moved toward the door. Here she paused, looked at me again, hesitated, and then drew a purse from her
pocket and flung it down on the floor. “There is your money!” she said, majestically.

I stood there, wavering between amazement and shame, and saw her pass out into the hall.

Then I picked up the purse. The next moment, I heard a loud shriek and a crash of something dropping, and she came
staggering back into the room without her light.

“My father — my father!” she cried; and with parted lips and dilated eyes, she rushed toward me.

“Your father — where?” I demanded.

“In the hall, at the foot of the stairs.”

I stepped forward to go out, but she seized my arm.

“He is in white,” she cried, “in his shirt. It’s not he!”

“Why, your father is in his house, in his bed, extremely ill,” I answered.

She looked at me fixedly, with searching eyes.

“Dying?”

“I hope not,” I stuttered.

She gave a long moan and covered her face with her hands.

“Oh, heavens, I have seen his ghost!” she cried.

She still held my arm; she seemed too terrified to release it. “His ghost!” I echoed, wondering.

“It’s the punishment of my long folly!” she went on.

“Ah,” said I, “it’s the punishment of my indiscretion — of my violence!”

“Take me away, take me away!” she cried, still clinging to my arm. “Not there” — as I was turning toward the hall
and the front door — “not there, for pity’s sake! By this door — the back entrance.” And snatching the other candles
from the table, she led me through the neighboring room into the back part of the house. Here was a door opening from a
sort of scullery into the orchard. I turned the rusty lock and we passed out and stood in the cool air, beneath the
stars.

Here my companion gathered her black drapery about her, and stood for a moment, hesitating. I had been infinitely
flurried, but my curiosity touching her was uppermost. Agitated, pale, picturesque, she looked, in the early evening
light, very beautiful.

“You have been playing all these years a most extraordinary game,” I said.

She looked at me somberly, and seemed disinclined to reply. “I came in perfect good faith,” I went on. “The last
time — three months ago — you remember? — you greatly frightened me.”

“Of course it was an extraordinary game,” she answered at last. “But it was the only way.”

“Had he not forgiven you?”

“So long as he thought me dead, yes. There have been things in my life he could not forgive.”

I hesitated and then — “And where is your husband?” I asked.

“I have no husband — I have never had a husband.”

She made a gesture which checked further questions, and moved rapidly away. I walked with her round the house to the
road, and she kept murmuring — “It was he — it was he!” When we reached the road she stopped, and asked me which way I
was going. I pointed to the road by which I had come, and she said — “I take the other. You are going to my father’s?”
she added.

“Directly,” I said.

“Will you let me know to-morrow what you have found?”

“With pleasure. But how shall I communicate with you?”

She seemed at a loss, and looked about her, “Write a few words,” she said, “and put them under that stone.” And she
pointed to one of the lava slabs that bordered the old well. I gave her my promise to comply, and she turned away. “I
know my road,” she said. “Everything is arranged. It’s an old story.”

She left me with a rapid step, and as she receded into the darkness, resumed, with the dark flowing lines of her
drapery, the phantasmal appearance with which she had at first appeared to me. I watched her till she became invisible,
and then I took my own leave of the place. I returned to town at a swinging pace, and marched straight to the little
yellow house near the river. I took the liberty of entering without a knock, and, encountering no interruption, made my
way to Captain Diamond’s room. Outside the door, on a low bench, with folded arms, sat the sable Belinda.

“How is he?” I asked.

“He’s gone to glory.”

“Dead?” I cried.

She rose with a sort of tragic chuckle.

“He’s as big a ghost as any of them now!”.I passed into the room and found the old man lying there irredeemably
rigid and still. I wrote that evening a few lines which I proposed on the morrow to place beneath the stone, near the
well; but my promise was not destined to be executed. I slept that night very ill — it was natural — and in my
restlessness left my bed to walk about the room. As I did so I caught sight, in passing my window, of a red glow in the
north-western sky. A house was on fire in the country, and evidently burning fast. It lay in the same direction as the
scene of my evening’s adventures, and as I stood watching the crimson horizon I was startled by a sharp memory. I had
blown out the candle which lighted me, with my companion, to the door through which we escaped, but I had not accounted
for the other light, which she had carried into the hall and dropped — heaven knew where — in her consternation. The
next day I walked out with my folded letter and turned into the familiar cross-road. The haunted house was a mass of
charred beams and smoldering ashes; the well cover had been pulled off, in quest of water, by the few neighbors who had
had the audacity to contest what they must have regarded as a demon-kindled blaze, the loose stones were completely
displaced, and the earth had been trampled into puddles.

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